15M is supposed to feel easier than this
I did today’s scheduled 15M without much joy and a bit too much blah. Since it needed to be mid-day, I opted again for the treadmill, where I able to watch “127 Hours”* for the first 9 miles or so. I did a random course with incline ranging from 0% to 5% (oddly, the “random” setting never goes to decline even though the treadmill does). I was without a lot of enthusiasm from the start, in part due to having just spent about two hours cleaning up the yard/garage in the same heat I was attempting to avoid by running on the treadmill.
Nevertheless, I got in the miles in 2 hours 37 minutes. It wasn’t supposed to be fast and it certainly wasn’t. I walked for stretches and at about 4 miles in I was just looking forward to it being over. Even with a gel every 20 minutes from the start (7 in all), I could feel my energy waning.
None of this is entirely unexpected considering I’ve been training and racing hard without a break for many months BEFORE even starting the marathon build-up but it did make me realize something: If I continue to train with both increasing intensity and increasing mileage I’m likely to get sick or injured or, a the very least and perhaps worse, not enjoy the experience of training. So, I’m going to remove the scheduled the 6-milers on Saturdays. I just don’t need those miles, really, and they neither help with speed nor endurance. I am still going to do something on Saturdays, most likely sticking to swimming and/or strength/core work. It is something of a relief to “let myself” only run 5 days a week and I’m confident this is the right move, both for improving my fitness and happiness. It’ll just give me that much more energy for the key Sunday mile repeats, which are a core component of the training cycle.
I got in my daily pull-ups (36) and push-ups (166, the average needed to hit the 5000 this month) for cumulative June totals of 157 and 641.
I weighed myself post-run. While I’m always a little dehydrated after a long run, I did drink at least 60 ounces of water during the run, along with the 7 gels. And I typically weigh more later in the day, which it now is. So, while not a cause for alarm just yet, I best get to eating. A lot.
*I have to admit I let myself speed up a bit right about the time he was – spoiler alert! – cutting off his arm. Nice scenery, especially for me to contemplate since it is set in the part of Utah where I’ll be running my October marathon. The movie was good, not great, but just the sort of thing I love to watch from the treadmill. It was certainly no “Into the Wild” but few movies are. Just one, actually.
Kind of Like Fun 